Still Travelling

Seriously. I'm actually on vacation - not the kind in which I go to my sister's and hang out and have fun and write like a maniac but the serious kind, in which I'm hiding from the world, soaking in a hot tub, and hunting my brains out.

Really. I'm relaxing. I'm having a great time.

Wish you were here!

Travelling

Billed 90 hours. Caught up on work. Power steering pump fixed. Staring at nothing, flinching at everything. Wiped out. Must be time for a vacation.

Hold the paper and mail. Finish catching up on work (and hide the cell phone). Set up timers for lamps. Pack (clothes, shoes, toiletries). Get the dog to the kennel (along with food and old blankie). Get Head Trip to look in on the cat (and not hiss at him). Do dishes. Vacuum. Pack some more (loupe, UV flashlight, jewelry). Leave sticky notes all over the door so I won't forget. Anything.

I need a vacation from my vacation ...

Hiding Out

I'm puttering today. I like to putter. I like to be by myself. I like to flit from useless project to useless project all day long. I like simple sentences, too. Even fragments. Because that's all I can think in sometimes. Like today. It's my day off. I'm hiding out from good grammar. Okay, I'm hiding from the world.

Life is complicated these days. People want to make things harder than common sense tells them to. Me? I see solutions (plural) straight out. Sometimes they hit me like a barrage of hailstones. But when anyone asks me, "Doesn't that make sense?" or "Do you see any reason we shouldn't do this?" I've learned the code - she's not asking for my opinion but for my agreement. I heard both questions this week, and they didn't make sense and I saw plenty of reasons not to do them - from my point of view. From the company's point of view, from her family's point of view ... not so much. And so I have learned the fine art of shutting my mouth.

It's not my default position. I am the Bunny With The Big Nose, and I was born to Stick It Everywhere. But I bite my tongue now, so often I could strain plankton through the holes. This means that once in awhile the unsaid answers build to critical mass, so I must either go away for awhile or go Vesuvius all over everybody's ass.

And so I putter. Funny thing is, I get a lot done, but fun stuff. My metal detector told me (in beep language) there are at least three likely spots to find a quantity of deep silver, and about a hundred places that either contain gold or, yes, iron (they read the same to my poor, brainless baby). I marked the silver with big red X's (spray paint) and the others with dots. My yard looks like it has the measles.

I also made reservations for our trip next week. We're going to see more Mark Twain stuff for a couple of days before we go to the conference, and then take our time getting home, too. I marked all the Salvation Armies and Goodwills with X's, too, just for the heck of it.

And I got to watch the Big Lug practically hyperventilate with excitement - he collects pipes, and he just now (as I sit here) deciphered the signature on one he bought. It's from a maker on his A-list, one he didn't think he could ever afford, a Tiffany of pipes. Apparently the seller hadn't recognized the artist, either, for the Big Lug got it at a bargain basement price. I'm glad I was here to see his face when he realized what he'd bought - that smile is my eternal addiction.

I'll fix us a nice dinner, and I'll snuggle with him, and I'll watch some more recorded things from a week I don't remember (because it was so full of work). I'll maybe clean jewelry, or maybe wash the dog, or maybe shave my legs. I don't know. The day is mine to do with as I please. And I choose to let all the words unsaid wash away. I choose to hide out, just for awhile.

That's not a bad thing. Especially if you can do it with your best friend.

Saying It

I had a conversation with my boss yesterday. Well, not so much a conversation as a question. Well, okay, less ask and more acquiesence. She said, "do you have any time to watch a presentation from a potential teacher?" and while my brain said "I have no life and I want to break this $%##*&@ phone," my mouth agreed to spend an extra half-hour at work tonight. My first tutorial is at 10 am. Now I'm not home for good until 9 pm.

Why did I do that?

Why did I schedule any of it in the first place?

I'm just a Bunny who can't say, "no," that's why. Not to a favor, not to "I have no one else I trust" - even if I were falling down a flight of stairs I'd probably agree to try to reset the banister as long as someone offered me a down-on-her-luck story. Y'know what that makes me?

A nice person.

Eeooo, gross. I've worked so hard on my crusty outer skin, too. I aspire to be a curmudgeon yet I persist in being a marshmallow. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just growl and huff and scare people off like the Big Lug does? Nobody asks him to do anything they don't think he'll do. Nobody can fool him with a sad tale. Well, most people can't. Well, people he doesn't like can't.

But me ... well, I'll say "yes" to the nastiest, meanest, most unreasonable customer in the world because maybe - maybe - I can turn that frown upside down. This morning, before I even left for my first student, I spent twenty minutes I didn't have speaking with a parent who scheduled four remaining tutorials for September. I scrambled in here to edit this posting (then head back to work), and found a message that she wanted to reschedule all of them, for days I'd told her I didn't have open (just this morning!) and times I never mentioned. I called her back, reminded her of this, and she said, "well, he can't do weeknights anyway," then proceeded to take my Saturdays from me. What did I do? Comisserated with her about the vagarities of teenagers' schedules with a solemn, "Yes, I remember," and pencilled him in.

I remember squat. I told my kids early on I wouldn't be their full-time chauffeur, that they'd have to choose one activity, and ride share more often than not. Not that I actually stuck to that, of course ... but the thought was there. Yet truly they never took advantage when I did say "yes" - they never made me into the mom who had no life of her own because her kids' schedules were so insane.

Nowadays, though, I can't say "no" to anybody. I want to speak softly and carry a big stick, but the club I wield turns out to be made of peppermint.

Ah, well, it could be worse. Everything I do, I do for love, and that seems to come back a hundredfold (even when I'm cranky about it), whether it's a request from my kids, my grands, or crazy parents - who refer other unreasonable parents, who somehow always have the most wonderful and reasonable children, by the way. Suddenly I have more students than I can handle, and all because I said, "yes" to them.

I do need to learn to say "no" to my work schedule, say "yes" more often to myself.

But not today. I have too much to do.

Stressing

I shouldn't have done it, quit cold turkey like that. I could have weaned myself away from - I don't know - opals, first, then gold, and then progressed to all jewelry. Why did I agree to a complete, global, abrupt fast?

It's my day off. I should be at the thrift stores, squinting through my loupe at the hallmarks, peering down the length of my arm to see how my potential find looks on my hand. Tomorrow ... okay, yes, I have a new class starting, but I could still go to a few yard sales, breath caught in anticipation of a bonanza, the electricity of potential horse-trading crackling in the air as I pull up then nonchalantly peruse a table full of pieces.

Oh, man I want to weep. I haven't had this much fun learning about - and hunting down - anything since I first started collecting milk glass. Yes, eventually I will become jaded (jade, sob!) as I did with milk glass (because I'm picky now, and I know 90% I see is shi - uh, common) but I'm still in the initial throes of infatuation, and my evil-mean parents just told me the boy is out of my life. Never mind that I was obsessing; it was love!

I keep telling myself that I'm becoming stronger, more appreciative, better equipped to resist the sparkle and get real bargains (and better pieces) with every day that passes. I recite "this is the right thing to do" like an effing mantra, that it's "prep work for an avalanche" of great finds. But I still feel as if someone stole Christmas.

Argh, cut it out! There's no crying in long-term, market-driven resource investment! I can do this!

I just need to shift focus.

Okay, um ... what's new? ... Well, Left Field is flying in with his partner for Thanksgiving. I'm actually over the moon about this, and no joke. I love having my children in proximity. Alaska is too far away to even be "prox". We'll do all the touristy things around here since (need a name for his partner!) has never been to this end of the world. Honestly, I'm such a geek that I adore doing all the sites (and sights). Add in a big holiday dinner, some board games, and a whole lot of chillin' and it's a recipe for a perfect week or so.

Oh, yeah, also - in desperation the other day, I took out my metal detector, a Big Lug classic present from several years ago. There really are a butt-load of blips, all over my yard. And since we're on top of an old farmstead, that could be not just cool but profitable, so I called our local utility ID place to come out and mark the lines. The nice lady got to the part about "reason for excavation" and I told her "treasure hunting." Silence. "I don't have a box for that," she said, "but it sounds like so much fun," and typed it in. I'll probably just be a bucket of nails richer by mid-September, but I'll sweat off a couple of pounds, aerate the lawn, and provide at least a moment's amusement for all the line-finders. Always, double- and triple-duty, right?

I'm planning the big trip, too. We leave a week from Tuesday. I need to contact everyone about Christmas and Hanukkah, too - which magazines to keep up, where sizes and tastes and trends are this year, all that good stuff. I'll have no end of possibilities for buying, and soon. Even jewelry - for other people.

Besides, I can still look at gems and platinum, I just can't buy it. (The Tiffany & Co. web site is always a good place for fasting addicts - can't afford much anyway) Plus, if it gets too bad, I'll just clean up what I have and, technically, end the drought.

But I don't think I'll need to. I can make it.

And I'll be sure to tell you what happens next.